is PAN's Campaign Coordinator. Her work focuses on pesticide impacts on maternal and children’s health as well as international pesticide campaigns. She works closely with network members from other PAN regional centers around the world. Follow @ChandraMedha

Medha Chandra's blog

Last Thursday, my daughter and I had the opportunity to join a group of Californians urging state officials in Sacramento to take action on the brain-harming pesticide chlorpyrifos. In an event organized by Californians for Pesticide Reform, we made our case to the cameras on the north steps of the capitol, then submitted a petition signed by over 12,000 people to the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR).

Members of the group El Quinto Sol de América from Tulare County were among those who traveled to Sacramento to help shake the agency into action. For these residents of the small Central Valley agricultural town of Lindsay, the problem of chlorpyrifos is personal.

The French parliament passed a new law earlier this month prohibiting the private or public use of pesticides in green areas, forests or public space, and severely restricting the number of pesticides that can be used in homes and gardens. This is huge!

After 2020 it will be illegal in France to use pesticides in parks and other public areas unless there is an emergency situation for controlling the spread of pests. And they appear to be serious about enforcement — anyone found using or in possession of banned pesticides could be imprisoned for up to six months with a fine of 30,000 Euros.

As another spring planting season nears in California, I'm beginning to worry. Not just about the rain, but about all the kids and communities who could be harmed by pesticides drifting from agricultural fields. These same chemicals — year after year — end up as pesticide residues on our food.

Chlorpyrifos is one of these worrisome pesticides. The California Department of Pesticide Regulations or DPR has taken barely any action on this brain-harming chemical. Today, a group of public health and environmental groups are sending a letter to DPR officials urging them to stop stalling, and act to protect California’s kids today. Please join us in urging DPR to move!

Indigenous communities of Inuit Yup’ik living on the St. Lawrence Island of Alaska face a tough winter ahead. For over 20 years, the communities have suffered from unusually high burdens of cancers, miscarriages and other health complications due to their high exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

Now the people of the island report a startlingly meager harvest of the walruses they rely on for food, as climate change shifts weather patterns and disrupts their traditional hunting practices. Our partners at Alaska Community Action on Toxics are raising emergency funds for these communities so we can all help them through the tough winter ahead.

September was a good month for wins against hazardous pesticides. China took steps to end the use of the persistent pesticide endosulfan — as did Mexico, which will ban it fully by January 2015. Costa Rica announced it will stop using the ozone-depleting pesticide methyl bromide. And El Salvador banned a host of pesticides in one fell swoop.

Many PAN partners and allies were involved in campaigns against these pesticides, and these health-protective actions from around the world are inspiring us in the U.S. to keep up the good fight.